Checks and Balances

Morning!

Sitting out on the deck on a lovely Sunday morning. I know it's been a few weeks since my last posting. Decided after running around for months and months with work, trying to get the album finished and the new band up to snuff , once I took our annual vacation to Ocean City NJ I decided to take an extra week off from blogging in order to "unplug" . It got to a point where I was listening to the pre-masters over and over, scheming and planning daily I needed to just let it sit and walk away from it before I lost my mind 😜

Got to practice with the band this past Wednesday though to kind of dust off the cobwebs yet again which was nice and we even had some photos taken of rehearsal and hopefully more professional shots this week coming up. Thanks to an old friend Jeffry Braun for taking the time to come down and take shots was great to see him! Hopefully we will see some pics up soon 👍

Things seem to be moving but we STILL need a bass player though! I've been strapping on tbe 4 string menace in the meantime but once I switch to keyboards we are baseless and considering 4-5 songs require full keys it drops out so anyone who is interested let me know! Even if I can find a committed lead guitar I'll take it since Helene is a great bass player too but I'll tell you, it would have to a be good and cool lead player cause she rocks! Right now we have a solid group of four but If we can find that one extra body it will be perfect.

But anyhoo back to the HEAL report

I'm happy to report that things are still going great! Ocean City this year was a blast, after having a troubling vacation last year with dental problems and work issues, this year was a lot better and everyone had a great time! We saw old friends we hadn't seen in years (their families were there same time we were and didn't even know it! See Facebook can work to your advantage sometimes) I got to spend some relaxing quality time with not only my girls, but the whole Gilroy clan and for the first time in ages I felt completely relaxed. It was extremely overdue.

Now going into the break I went down there with the best of intentions. We were 2 blocks from the beach and I told myself "I'm gonna do my yoga on the beach!" and "I'm gonna watch myself and do only healthy things all week!" but of course once you get down there, your feet are up and the ocean breeze is a blowing once I decompressed I quickly went to "ehhhhh fuck it I'm just gonna not worry and just relax". I decided to just recharge the batteries and just be happy without stressing.

Spent most of my time like this. This place was in the center of things so great for people watching

However like I've been saying now for months is this is NOT a diet, it's a lifestyle change. Even though we were very close to the Boardwalk and all of the fried, sugary delights were well within reach there wasn't that much temptation for me. The good thing about renting an apartment with a mother that is an amazing cook was there were many dinners where we stayed in and had some great home cooked meals of chicken, eggplant and other healthier choices so it wasn't like it was eating crap 24/7 which was nice.

My eldest daughter can make a pretty and mean tasting salad

Were there times where I did partake? Sure there were some days of things like funnel cake fries (the best invention ever! No yanking apart a big hunk of dough with sugar they were made in the shape of fries for easy sharing) buffalo shrimp, pirogies, French fries and yes there was an ice cream place across the street open till midnight for late night visits but the portions were reasonable, I still logged in everything I put in my mouth and the thing I learned this year was as long as you are being active, rewards can be granted.

Was nice I got to take each daughter to the boardwalk one day seperately for our own date 💕

Even though I didn't get to my yoga in the sand, there was a lot and lot of walking. Normally because of my schedule I'm good for only about 3-4k steps a day. Sure on a weekend I'll get up to 5-6k running around doing chores and activities with the kids but even on a relaxing vacation, there were walks to the beach, long walks on the boardwalk so those walks made up for the yoga sweating. One day I even got to over 10k steps for the first time! Sure I was walking to the ice cream store when it happened but still counts.

The thing buzzed on my wrist like crazy when it happened I thought I broke it!

But that was the amazing thing even though there were a day or two of treats by the time I got back to our home not only was I relaxed there were some feelings and things I never felt before after a vacation:

I was dying for a big glass of kale and a salad

i couldn't wait to go downstairs on Monday and get back to my yoga

I lost another 5 pounds

Next to the ice cream shop was a cigar shop. All of the Gilroy clan got to partake in a tasty cigar on their deck. Family bonding at its finest